Veni, Vidi, Vivendi  

This week, Seagram announced that it would be bought by the French company Vivendi. Edgar Bronfman Jr., the CEO of Seagram and the last of three generations of Bronfmans to control the liquor company, came under fire two years ago for transforming it into an entertainment giant with the acquisition of Universal Studios and Polygram. In 1998, Slate’s David Plotz debunked the conventional wisdom that Edgar Sr. was a generous and business-savvy patriarch while Edgar Jr. was a romantic and foolhardy cinephile.